The new Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria in Kaduna State, Professor Kabir Bala has listed factors that have retarded the progress of the institution and appealed to all staff of the institution to unite and work hard to correct such anomalies.
The Deputy Director, Public Affairs of the institution, Malam Auwal Umar, in a statement today, April 30, quoted the new Vice-Chancellor after receiving the handing over notes at the university Senate Chamber from the Acting Vice-Chancellor, Professor Danladi Ameh, as saying that functional academic brief, inability to review the institution’s curricular and lack of master plan among others, as the major challenges facing the university at the moment.
He said that the last time the institution’s curricular was reviewed was in 2012 and that was the very first time the university was able to review its curricula, saying also that the present curricular was due for review in 2017 but nothing was done.
The VC insisted that people looked up to ABU to solve their problems as the institution proffered solutions in the past to challenges faced in agriculture, security and many other sensitive issues.
“We need to do a lot to catch up with the global trend. ABU had never had an academic brief, we don’t have the master plan for long, the last being the one produced in 1982, during the tenure of Prof. Ango Abdullahi. Even the strategic plans we have do not syncronise.
“We have to raise these questions because of ABU’s strategic position.
“Unfortunately, we are now in an academic and intellectual environment where we don’t want to ask questions for fear that we may be tagged as the enemy of the system. All we have now all over is mediocrity.”
“When last did we have our discourse as a university?
“I could vividly remember when government would always rush to ABU to collect the analyses and recommendations after every public discourse organised by the then academics like Dr Yusuf Bala Usman of blessed memory.”
The Vice Chancellor, who expressed gratitude to his predecessor, Professor Ibrahim Garba, for all his good works, said that for the university to be run effectively and efficiently, the committee system had to be revived as a statutory organ of the administration.
Professor Ameh had described the new VC as somebody with vast knowledge of the university, saying: “with Prof Kabir Bala in the saddle the university would fare well”.
“The incoming VC is not a stranger to us as he worked in various places in this university which we all cherish and love. He is a tested hand and so the university will be in a safe hand.”
It would be recalled that the Governing Council of ABU had at its 189th Special Meeting on January 22, 2020 approved the appointment of Bala as new VC of the institution.
Bala, a professor of construction management and the immediate past Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Administration), took over from Prof. Ibrahim Garba whose tenure expired today, April 30. Source: NAN
President Muhammadu Buhari is reported to have given a go-ahead to relevant officers to embark on implementation of Steve Oransaye report and recommendation for the pruning of statutory agencies of the federal government from 263 to 161.
The Minister of Finance, Budget and National Planning, Mrs. Zainab Ahmed, who dropped this hint today, April 30, said that President Buhari has directed the Secretary to the Government of the Federation and the Head of Service to begin the restructuring and rationalization in line with the report.
“The president has approved that this administration should implement the Oransaye report. It has reviewed the whole of the size of government and has made very significant recommendations in terms of reducing the number of agencies and that would mean merging some agencies.
“This is a report that has been in place for a long time and there hasn’t been implementation but the president has approved that this should be implemented.”
The minister, speaking on Channels TV Programme: “Politics Today.” Said: “we have conveyed Mr. President’s approval to the arms of government that are responsible for this and that will be the office of the secretary of government and the head of civil service of the federation.”
The Oronsaye Committee, chaired by the then Head of Service, Steve Oronsaye, was inaugurated in 2011 during the Goodluck Jonathan administration to seek ways of cutting cost of governance in the country.
The committee, among others, reported that 541 government parastatals, commissions and agencies existed as at the time of the report and recommended the pruning of the statutory agencies from 263 to 161.
Nigeria’s Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has said that the 244 prisons (correctional facilities) across the country are free from coronavirus cases.
The minister, who spoke today, April at the Presidential Taskforce on coronavirus daily press briefing in Abuja, said that officers at the correctional centres followed the Nigeria Centre for Disease Control (NCDC) protocol strictly.
He said that the ministry had stopped any form of intake into the correctional centres, adding that the Federal Government had also helped by decongesting the correctional centres with the recent pardon granted to some prisoners by President Muhammadu Buhari.
He attributed non record of Coronavirus case in any of the correctional centres to diligence on the part of its officers, explaining that officials at the correctional centres had maintained a crisis free regime in spite of the tough situation occasioned by COVID-19 pandemic.
Aregbesola said that this was made possible through strict adherence to protocol as established by the NCDC.
He commended the Attorney General of the Federation and the Chief Justice of Nigeria for their support, saying that the combined taskforce of security agencies are on patrol of Nigeria and Cameron borders to forestall the coming of both legal and illegal people into the country.
He commended the governors of Borno, Taraba, Cross Rivers, Benue, among others, for ensuring the prevention of people who could compromise the country’s border.
“The effort we are making as PTF is to ensure that even after this COVID-19, we will look at how we have changed our attitude and a new social economic and spiritual order will emerge.”
On Monday, April 27, 2020, British oil and gas giant, BP, became the latest in a growing number of energy firms to declare a massive quarterly loss. Their loss was in the region of $4.4 billion dollars. Bear in mind that this was a conglomerate that posted a $2.6 billion profit in the corresponding quarter of 2019.
The challenges that are already engulfing the oil and gas sector will continue to plague that industry for at least the rest of the year, and may reach apocalyptic levels sooner than we expect.
As I write this, there are hundreds of crude oil laden ships, all filled up, with nowhere to berth, and accruing daily charges of an average of $30,000.
We have also seen crude oil prices plunge to record lows, to the extent that some variants of the product have been given out for free, or worse still, producers have paid storage facilities to take their products.
As at today (May 1, 2020), Nigeria is pricing its very low sulphur sweet crude at $10 per barrel, yet buyers are balking. Our sweet crude is becoming a little bitter.
I had earlier warned that Nigeria needs a Strategic Reserve to store unsold crude. Now, we have so much crude and no one to buy it, nowhere to store it, and little idea what to do with it.
Barely three years ago, I had also alerted that the “crude thinking” promoted by our dependence on crude oil will lead to a rude shock.
“If you are still talking about oil, you are in the past. As far as I am concerned, the era of oil is gone. If you want to believe it, believe it. If you do not want to believe it, you will see it. It is crude thinking to continue to talk and base development projections on crude oil”, I had said at a public event in the nation’s capital.
We must face the fact that reliance on crude oil is failing Nigeria and other mono product economy crude oil exporters. Now is the time for Nigeria and her contemporaries to cure their addiction to sweet crude. For far too long we have grown high on our own supply, to the extent that we have neglected almost every other sector of our economy.
This present rude awakening should be seen as a blessing in disguise – a blessing that compels us to take those drastic actions that will free us from the crude oil trap.
We need to diversify our economy, and yes, it is easier said than done, but that does not mean it is an impossible task.
Prior to Nigeria’s October 1, 1960 independence from Great Britain, not only were we a nation self reliant in food production, but we also exported food to other countries, earning precious foreign exchange in the process. Who can forget the great groundnut pyramids in Northern Nigeria? For example, in 1957, agriculture formed a whopping 86% of our export revenue. By 1977, agricultural exports had dwindled to 6%, and today, the figure is less than 3%.
How did our country go from being a net exporter of agricultural products to a net importer of food products? How did we go from a country that could feed itself to one that desperately depends on foreign imports for survival? The answer to these questions is leadership focus.
During elections, Nigerian politicians spend a significant amount of their campaign time discussing how they will manage the nation’s resources. However, the fundamental difference between a leader and a manager is that while a manager focuses on managing existing resources, a leader sets out a creative vision which the country must follow to chart a course to political and socio-economic greatness.
Certainly, what is abundantly clear is that Nigeria is never going to become an industrialized nation by selling more oil, even if the oil market recovers. The lessons from Venezuela’s current predicament come to mind. If oil and gas could have saved any nation, that nation would be Venezuela. Unfortunately, Venezuela is bankrupt and insolvent.
Saudi Arabia, despite its huge reserves and a highly publicized listing of Saudi Aramco, is feeling the pinch and working rapidly towards its Vision 2030, which requires Saudi Arabia to diversify from its dependence on Oil. Other prudent countries facing the same predicament are doing the same.
Oil economies need to learn a thing or two about economic diversification from the United Arab Emirates. Despite being a young nation, the leadership of the UAE has managed to diversify the economy of this country from an almost complete reliance on oil in the 1970s, to a country where 72% of the GDP comes from the non oil sectors of the economy such as aviation, tourism and services sectors.
In Nigeria, our diversification should embrace agriculture as the primary sector earmarked for development, because agriculture is a low hanging fruit, is key to ensuring food subsistence, and with the recent signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement (AFCTA), which favors Nigeria’s economy greatly, Nigeria can take advantage of this to become an agricultural powerhouse in Africa.
For example, Africa has the lowest intra regional trade amongst the seven continents. Indeed, 68% of Europe’s trade is within the continent. However, Africa does more trade with non African nations than we do amongst each other. Our intra-continental trade is an abysmal 18%. This must change and Nigeria is key to altering this sad state of affairs.
Within the Agricultural sector, the African continent in 2014, earned $2.4 billion from the export of coffee to Europe. That sounds impressive. However, one country alone, Germany, made $3.8 billion from re-exporting Africa’s coffee in 2014. This trend continued into 2015, 2016 and has not changed to date. What is it that Germany does to add value to the coffee, cocoa, and other produce that they buy from Africa that we cannot do in Nigeria? Nigeria can easily become a value-added re-exporter of African coffee to the world.
Ditto for tea, cocoa, wheat, sugar cane, and other cash crops. There are none of these products that I have mentioned that Nigeria cannot either grow in commercial quantities or add value to, in the same way other industrialized economies are doing.
I should know because I am already practicing what I am advocating. I have multiple profitable farms and other businesses in the agricultural value chain.
With about 60% of its land assessed as arable, I truly believe that Nigeria is capable of becoming the food basket of the rest of Africa, and in the process, it can capture a sizable portion of the $48 billion that goes towards food imports in Africa. That money should be circulating within Africa, strengthening our currencies, growing our GDPs, and enriching our people.
I was in Benin Republic recently and I was informed by one of the most successful industrialists in the country that Benin buys its cement from China. Why should a country that shares land borders with Nigeria have to import cement from China 7000 miles away, when Dangote cement is perfectly able, and I am sure willing, to provide the same product at a competitive price?
Is this not what the AFCTA agreement is meant to promote? Why would Nigeria maintain an insane policy of border closures at a time it desperately needs them open to promote trade?
Now is the time for Nigeria to make those hard decisions it has postponed for far too long otherwise the alternative is an apocalyptic scenario we would rather not entertain.
We must, as nation, begin to invest our resources wisely in order to maximize dividends. We must liberalize our land tenure system to make it possible and easy for some of the 27 million unemployed Nigerians to become farmers, even as sharecroppers.
Last year, Ethiopia mobilized its 100 million strong population to plant 350 million trees in 12 hours (a world record). Nigeria can similarly mobilize its population of twice that number to plant billions of cash crops through the planting season. It is possible. I have repeatedly charged my farm associates to sow seeds and they have done so successfully.
When the huge opportunities of agriculture are combined with a rejuvenated manufacturing and MSMEs sectors, then a new era of sustainability and prosperity beckons for Africa.
Nigeria is at the lowest point we have ever been as a nation. We have over indulged on seemingly cheap loans and have quadrupled our foreign debt in just four years. Taking more of such loans will just sink our country deeper and deeper into a quagmire. What is certain is that we can not continue with things the way they are now, except we want to ensure an implosion of our dearly beloved nation.
We must cut our coat, not according to our size, but according to our cloth. Our Presidential Air Fleet of almost 10 planes should go. Our jumbo budgets for our legislature must go. The planned $100 million renovation of our Parliament must be cancelled. We cannot be funding non necessities with debt and not expect our economy to collapse. Our civil servants must come to the realization that Nigeria cannot sustain its size and profligacy. The same cost saving measures must be adopted by the states and councils government.
From henceforth, our energies, resources and focus, must be on how we can diversify our economy, not on how we can increase our expenditure.
Atiku Abubakar is a former Vice President of Nigeria and presidential candidate of the PDP in the 2019 election.
American biotech company Gilead Sciences, has announced that its new experimental drug, known as remdesivir, has been proven effective against the novel coronavirus according to a study by the US government.
The drug is the first treatment for the coronavirus to pass the study conducted by the National Institutes of Health.
The study, according to Biotech company Gilead Sciences, tested the effectiveness of the drug compared to normal care in 800 coronavirus patients around the world and measured the differences in recovery time.
It said that remdesivir was developed to combat other diseases which are caused by similar viruses such as SARS and MERS.
According to the company, the drug has been closely watched by healthcare professionals as a possible means to mitigate the coronavirus crisis.
The study could pave the way for the US Food and Drug Administration to fast-track an emergency approval of remdesivir.
Gilead Sciences shares were said to have risen by 5.7 percent in response to the announcement of the study while the S&P 500 rose by 2.4 percent.
However, so far, no country has currently approved the use of any drug for the cure of coronavirus.
The Ooni of Ife, Oba Enitan Adeyeye Ogunwusi has given a hint that a local herbal cure for coronavirus will soon be released to the public.
The Ooni, who spoke today, April 29 at Oke – Mosan Governor’s Office, Abeokuta, Ogun State, while handing over two motorised modular fumigators to Governor Dapo Abiodun as his donation to the Ogun State Government in support of its battle against the spread of coronavirus, said: “we are going to proffer the local cure for coronavirus very soon.
“I have gone very far in advanced stage with the traditional medicine practitioners in Nigeria. Before this pandemic came out, I have actually announced.
“From what we inherited from our ancestors; it came out very clear that the cure, the immune booster, and the solution to a large extent was presented to us and we did what we are supposed to do, but the people probably didn’t hear us.
“I am very happy that the same thing that we are talking about in Nigeria, another sister country Madagascar has taken it upon themselves and even US government has even reach out to them for funding.
“It is another unfortunate thing that the international countries are reaching out to us on this our solution but even our local people are not reaching out to us and we have testimonials of a lot of people that have this ailment that we have used it for to heal them.
“It is a natural herbal and it is very effective, so, we decided to keep quiet and move to a stage of motorised fumigation and make it very mechanical.
“Our ancestors started fumigation, started sanitisation; they used to call it ‘ero’ wherever you have ‘igbono ‘ in the olden days, our ancestors will say ‘e je ki a lo won ero.’ We are here to fumigate, so, what is the different.
“People will say why I will not sharing palliative, how many palliatives do you want to share, you can keep sharing and the thing keep on dropping on your body; we are killing more people.
“We are so worried, it is a sleepless night for me; what I have just come to present today, it is a very very huge sleepless nights because we were fully prepared in a traditional way, it is not like we are not prepared and that is why it didn’t actually catch us unaware. So, the result will soon come out and we will announce it to the world.
“We are looking at the whole state in Nigeria. The issue is logistics, so, we are trying to cover the one we can cover within our ambit, but the major challenge is logistics.
“When I get to the point of hitting brick wall, I will shout to the whole world again that, please help us we have a solution, how can we reach to other longer places.
“For me, I am ready, I am willing to move, people are worried and afraid that I should be worried and afraid, but I said No, we have to do legacy for ourselves and rise up to the occasion to face this pandemic.”
The Federal Government of Nigeria has disbursed the sum of N43,416,000,000.00 ($120.6 million) to 24 states under the World Bank-Assisted States Fiscal Transparency, Accountability and Sustainability (SFTAS) Programme-for-Results.
The fund is through a performance-based grant which is wholly-financed with a loan of $750 million from the International Development Association (IDA), a member of the World Bank Group.
Kaduna, voted as having achieved the highest number of results (nine), got the highest share of N3. 960 billion, while Katsina and Benue states got the lowest amount of N540 million each.
The 24 states were said to have achieved: improved financial reporting and budget reliability; increased openness and citizens’ engagement in the budget process; improved cash management and reduced revenue leakages through the implementation of State Treasury Single Account (TSA); strengthened Internally Generated Revenue (IGR) collection; biometric registration and Bank Verification Number (BVN) used to reduce payroll fraud.
The 24 beneficiary states are Abia, Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Delta, Edo, Ekiti, Enugu, Gombe, Jigawa, Kaduna, Kano, Katsina, Kebbi, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Ondo, Ogun, Oyo, Osun, Sokoto, Taraba and Yobe states.
The National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force on coronavirus, Dr Sani Aliyu, has said that banks will be allowed to open for the normal commercial operations in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Lagos and Ogun States for six hours daily from May 4.
Speaking today, April 29 on the update, Dr. Sani Aliyu said banks would be allowed to open between 8am and 2pm in the three places, saying: “in terms of the banks, this continues to be a recurring issue for all of us. We have been in touch with the CBN governor.
“Moving on from Monday, banks will open and they will operate normal services from 8am to 2pm. That is six hours but there will be the usual restrictions. For instance, self-distancing and the use of temperature monitors, hand hygiene, and making sure the capacities of banking halls are restricted so that people do not come together.”
The Presidency has advised all stakeholders to step up collective action to arrest the rapid surge in coronavirus cases in Kano and leave political and other differences aside.
In a statement today, April 29, senior special assistant to President Muhammadu Buhari on media and publicity, Malam Garba Shehu said: “there is no time for energy wasted on political point-scoring, whether by current or former holders of office – or for any differences between state and federal administrations to be publicly aired.
“This is no time for talk. Our common purpose is to preserve the lives and health of citizens.”
Garba Shehu assured Kano people that President Buhari and his government are with them in this trying time, adding that he will not let them down.
“If there is reason to believe that the mortality rate in Kano due to COVID-19 is out of control, it will spell a serious development to which the best action would be for the Federal government and state government to work more tightly together to find solutions and implement together.”
The presidency confirmed that there is up till now, there is a global shortage of personal protective equipment, virus testing kits and other medical devices required to fight the pandemic.
He said that in each and every country there are some cities and regions more severely affected than others, saying that in Nigeria, “there are currently verbal autopsies underway in Kano State to identify the precise cause of the sudden and rapid increase in mortality in recent days.
“While some may wish to believe that there are other causes at play here like hypertension, diabetes, meningitis, and acute malaria’, there are others who say it is COVID-19.
“We should be prepared to accept the medical and scientific result of the autopsies and work together to confront the common enemy.
“What we know all over the world is that communities with similar socioeconomic dynamics like Kano have found as very helpful, the sort of lockdown measures now imposed, with markets and other public places of worship shuttered more strictly.”
The Aareonakakanfo of Yorubaland, Iba Gani Abiodun Ige Adams, has said that he is dedicating his 50th birthday anniversary, coming up tomorrow, April 30, to God and to the memory of those that have lost their lives to the raging cofonavirus global pandemic.
In a statement today, April 29 by his Special Assistant on Media, Kehinde Aderemi, the Yoruba leader said that he would be focusing more on charity to the poor and the less privileged people in the society even as he promised to continually touch the lives of the people positively. Gani Adams, who marks his birthday annually with several activities, including visits to motherless babies homes, said that Nigerians, especially from the South West, would begin to feel his impact through initiatives that would add value to their lives. He promised to concentrate more on building the future of the people through skill acquisition programmes and human capacity development initiatives, saying: “I am not getting younger. “Attaining this glorious age is never by my power or might. It is simply by the special grace of God. “God has been so wonderful to me and the rest of my family. Therefore, at 50, I think I need to do a lot more in enriching the lives of the poor people in the country. “As the Aare Onakakanfo of Yorubaland, it is important to look beyond the present situation in the country and see how we can be of help to people that have lost hope. It is wonderful putting smiles to the faces of several people through charity. “It is quite interesting impacting people’s lives positively and that is exactly what I want to live my life for. I want to impact humanity through empowerment programmes and human capacity development initiatives. These are some of the areas I would be focusing on now. “Apart from my usual social activism and crusade, I would like to use my social networks and influence to change the narratives, particularly in the South West.” Iba Adams reiterated the need for an egalitarian society, saying that the challenge before the leadership of this country now is the struggle for a better society. He urged the Federal Government to enhance social equality and equal rights for all and sundry, pointing out that social equality remains the nexus of an egalitarian society. “We need to do our job at all times, playing the role of watchdogs to the government in the overall interest of the people. “We need to tell our leaders the truth, especially on issues that have direct impact on the lives of the people. “The way the health crisis of the Coronavirus global pandemic was managed in Nigeria as well as the attendant social and inequitable distribution of palliatives to the people, really exposed the failures of the government. “It shows the level of our leaders’ insensitivity to the plights of the people and that is the reality of our situation. “And at this point in time in our country, we need to inculcate the idea of putting the interests of the people first before that of ours. A society thrives where there is justice and social equality. And that is the essence of an egalitarian society.”
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The new Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU), Zaria in Kaduna State, Professor Kabir Bala has listed factors that have retarded the progress of the institution and appealed to all staff of the institution to unite and work hard to correct such anomalies.
Nigeria’s Minister of Interior, Ogbeni Rauf Aregbesola, has said that the 244 prisons (correctional facilities) across the country are free from coronavirus cases.
The National Coordinator of the Presidential Task Force on coronavirus, Dr Sani Aliyu, has said that banks will be allowed to open for the normal commercial operations in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Lagos and Ogun States for six hours daily from May 4.
The Presidency has advised all stakeholders to step up collective action to arrest the rapid surge in coronavirus cases in Kano and leave political and other differences aside.
How to Pull Nigeria From The Brink, By Atiku Abubakar
On Monday, April 27, 2020, British oil and gas giant, BP, became the latest in a growing number of energy firms to declare a massive quarterly loss. Their loss was in the region of $4.4 billion dollars. Bear in mind that this was a conglomerate that posted a $2.6 billion profit in the corresponding quarter of 2019.
The challenges that are already engulfing the oil and gas sector will continue to plague that industry for at least the rest of the year, and may reach apocalyptic levels sooner than we expect.
As I write this, there are hundreds of crude oil laden ships, all filled up, with nowhere to berth, and accruing daily charges of an average of $30,000.
We have also seen crude oil prices plunge to record lows, to the extent that some variants of the product have been given out for free, or worse still, producers have paid storage facilities to take their products.
As at today (May 1, 2020), Nigeria is pricing its very low sulphur sweet crude at $10 per barrel, yet buyers are balking. Our sweet crude is becoming a little bitter.
I had earlier warned that Nigeria needs a Strategic Reserve to store unsold crude. Now, we have so much crude and no one to buy it, nowhere to store it, and little idea what to do with it.
Barely three years ago, I had also alerted that the “crude thinking” promoted by our dependence on crude oil will lead to a rude shock.
“If you are still talking about oil, you are in the past. As far as I am concerned, the era of oil is gone. If you want to believe it, believe it. If you do not want to believe it, you will see it. It is crude thinking to continue to talk and base development projections on crude oil”, I had said at a public event in the nation’s capital.
We must face the fact that reliance on crude oil is failing Nigeria and other mono product economy crude oil exporters. Now is the time for Nigeria and her contemporaries to cure their addiction to sweet crude. For far too long we have grown high on our own supply, to the extent that we have neglected almost every other sector of our economy.
This present rude awakening should be seen as a blessing in disguise – a blessing that compels us to take those drastic actions that will free us from the crude oil trap.
We need to diversify our economy, and yes, it is easier said than done, but that does not mean it is an impossible task.
Prior to Nigeria’s October 1, 1960 independence from Great Britain, not only were we a nation self reliant in food production, but we also exported food to other countries, earning precious foreign exchange in the process. Who can forget the great groundnut pyramids in Northern Nigeria? For example, in 1957, agriculture formed a whopping 86% of our export revenue. By 1977, agricultural exports had dwindled to 6%, and today, the figure is less than 3%.
How did our country go from being a net exporter of agricultural products to a net importer of food products? How did we go from a country that could feed itself to one that desperately depends on foreign imports for survival? The answer to these questions is leadership focus.
During elections, Nigerian politicians spend a significant amount of their campaign time discussing how they will manage the nation’s resources. However, the fundamental difference between a leader and a manager is that while a manager focuses on managing existing resources, a leader sets out a creative vision which the country must follow to chart a course to political and socio-economic greatness.
Certainly, what is abundantly clear is that Nigeria is never going to become an industrialized nation by selling more oil, even if the oil market recovers. The lessons from Venezuela’s current predicament come to mind. If oil and gas could have saved any nation, that nation would be Venezuela. Unfortunately, Venezuela is bankrupt and insolvent.
Saudi Arabia, despite its huge reserves and a highly publicized listing of Saudi Aramco, is feeling the pinch and working rapidly towards its Vision 2030, which requires Saudi Arabia to diversify from its dependence on Oil. Other prudent countries facing the same predicament are doing the same.
Oil economies need to learn a thing or two about economic diversification from the United Arab Emirates. Despite being a young nation, the leadership of the UAE has managed to diversify the economy of this country from an almost complete reliance on oil in the 1970s, to a country where 72% of the GDP comes from the non oil sectors of the economy such as aviation, tourism and services sectors.
In Nigeria, our diversification should embrace agriculture as the primary sector earmarked for development, because agriculture is a low hanging fruit, is key to ensuring food subsistence, and with the recent signing of the African Continental Free Trade Area agreement (AFCTA), which favors Nigeria’s economy greatly, Nigeria can take advantage of this to become an agricultural powerhouse in Africa.
For example, Africa has the lowest intra regional trade amongst the seven continents. Indeed, 68% of Europe’s trade is within the continent. However, Africa does more trade with non African nations than we do amongst each other. Our intra-continental trade is an abysmal 18%. This must change and Nigeria is key to altering this sad state of affairs.
Within the Agricultural sector, the African continent in 2014, earned $2.4 billion from the export of coffee to Europe. That sounds impressive. However, one country alone, Germany, made $3.8 billion from re-exporting Africa’s coffee in 2014. This trend continued into 2015, 2016 and has not changed to date. What is it that Germany does to add value to the coffee, cocoa, and other produce that they buy from Africa that we cannot do in Nigeria? Nigeria can easily become a value-added re-exporter of African coffee to the world.
Ditto for tea, cocoa, wheat, sugar cane, and other cash crops. There are none of these products that I have mentioned that Nigeria cannot either grow in commercial quantities or add value to, in the same way other industrialized economies are doing.
I should know because I am already practicing what I am advocating. I have multiple profitable farms and other businesses in the agricultural value chain.
With about 60% of its land assessed as arable, I truly believe that Nigeria is capable of becoming the food basket of the rest of Africa, and in the process, it can capture a sizable portion of the $48 billion that goes towards food imports in Africa. That money should be circulating within Africa, strengthening our currencies, growing our GDPs, and enriching our people.
I was in Benin Republic recently and I was informed by one of the most successful industrialists in the country that Benin buys its cement from China. Why should a country that shares land borders with Nigeria have to import cement from China 7000 miles away, when Dangote cement is perfectly able, and I am sure willing, to provide the same product at a competitive price?
Is this not what the AFCTA agreement is meant to promote? Why would Nigeria maintain an insane policy of border closures at a time it desperately needs them open to promote trade?
Now is the time for Nigeria to make those hard decisions it has postponed for far too long otherwise the alternative is an apocalyptic scenario we would rather not entertain.
We must, as nation, begin to invest our resources wisely in order to maximize dividends. We must liberalize our land tenure system to make it possible and easy for some of the 27 million unemployed Nigerians to become farmers, even as sharecroppers.
Last year, Ethiopia mobilized its 100 million strong population to plant 350 million trees in 12 hours (a world record). Nigeria can similarly mobilize its population of twice that number to plant billions of cash crops through the planting season. It is possible. I have repeatedly charged my farm associates to sow seeds and they have done so successfully.
When the huge opportunities of agriculture are combined with a rejuvenated manufacturing and MSMEs sectors, then a new era of sustainability and prosperity beckons for Africa.
Nigeria is at the lowest point we have ever been as a nation. We have over indulged on seemingly cheap loans and have quadrupled our foreign debt in just four years. Taking more of such loans will just sink our country deeper and deeper into a quagmire. What is certain is that we can not continue with things the way they are now, except we want to ensure an implosion of our dearly beloved nation.
We must cut our coat, not according to our size, but according to our cloth. Our Presidential Air Fleet of almost 10 planes should go. Our jumbo budgets for our legislature must go. The planned $100 million renovation of our Parliament must be cancelled. We cannot be funding non necessities with debt and not expect our economy to collapse. Our civil servants must come to the realization that Nigeria cannot sustain its size and profligacy. The same cost saving measures must be adopted by the states and councils government.
From henceforth, our energies, resources and focus, must be on how we can diversify our economy, not on how we can increase our expenditure.